The Master Chief Collection coming to PC

In a surprising announcement, “Halo” game developer, 343 Studios, has revealed that “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” will be making its way to the PC via Microsoft’s Windows PC store and Valve’s Steam service. I also want to share the five best free games on Steam.

According to a representative of 343 Studios, the plan is to release each title within the Halo: The Master Chief Collection, one by one, as opposed to a full collection, like it was on the Xbox One. The developer also plans to release the titles on Steam and they consider the PC gaming marketplace to be “a new opportunity” for targeted consumers.

A future Steam release

“We’re going to roll out each of the games in The MCC one by one,” said the studio representative. “Steam for us is a new opportunity. We want to bring our games to players …

to the platforms of their choice.”

So much ‘Halo’

“Halo: The Master Chief Collection” is a bundle that includes the majority of titles from the award-winning first-person shooter franchise that helped put the Xbox console brand on the map. Initially released for the Xbox One in November 2014, the bundle included “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary,” “Halo 2: Anniversary,” “Halo 3,” and “Halo 4.”

In May 2015, the developer added the campaign mode for “Halo 3: ODST” to the collection. Additionally, the studio had already made plans to add “Halo: Reach” to the collection, rounding the collection’s list of titles to six. Besides the collection, Microsoft previous announced backward compatibility for all of the “Halo” games on Xbox One. Microsoft also announced backward compatibility for “Halo” gamers.

Things weren’t always peachy

Despite the overall success of the “HMCC,” things didn’t quite go according to 343 Studios‘ plan in the beginning. The launch for the video game collection was hindered by technical issues plaguing the multiplayer aspect of the games. While consumers may have arrived at the franchise, in droves, for its story and campaign, they typically stay for the multiplayer. Unfortunately, early adopters soon learned that the online matchmaking features were malfunctioning.

The disaster had caused many setbacks for the studio, including the postponing of their very own eSport competition, the Halo Championship League. 343 Studios would issue a public apology for the issues and roll out many updates to patch the multiplayer for Xbox One users over the course of its first year.

Critical responses

“HMCC” received critical acclaim, amassing many positive reviews from critics. The video game collection currently sits at a score of 80 out of 100 on the review aggregation site known as Meta Critic. However, the technical issues with the multiplayer had undoubtedly proved detrimental to its score.